Vince McMahon told me today that WWE is moving Monday Night Raw to the Staples Center in L.A. on Memorial Day. The organization has scheduled a make-up event for Aug. 7 at the Denver Coliseum for fans who have tickets to the original show that was slated for the Pepsi Center.

Kroenke Sports Enterprises, owner of the Pepsi Center and the Denver Nuggets, bumped the WWE after the NBA scheduled Game 4 of the Western Conference finals between the Nuggets and Los Angeles Lakers for Monday night.

McMahon was clearly still irked at Kroenke Wednesday afternoon.

“We respect our audience and we always do the right thing for them, unlike the way WWE has been treated by Kroenke’s management. We’ve been treated so shabbily,” McMahon said. “Not only have they thrown us out, they’ve tried to trample on top of us after they threw us out.”

He said Kroenke offered to pay any incremental costs WWE would have incurred as a result of the scheduling conflict only if WWE agreed to a joint press release.

He promised to poke fun at Stan Kroenke and the Nuggets during Monday night’s show at Staples. He plans to stage a wrestling match-up between the Nuggets and Lakers and a confrontation between himself and an actor posing as Stan the Man.

Vince McMahon told me today that WWE is moving Monday Night Raw to the Staples Center in L.A. on Memorial Day. The organization has scheduled a make-up event for Aug. 7 at the Denver Coliseum for fans who have tickets to the original show that was slated for the Pepsi Center.

Kroenke Sports Enterprises, owner of the Pepsi Center and the Denver Nuggets, bumped the WWE after the NBA scheduled Game 4 of the Western Conference finals between the Nuggets and Los Angeles Lakers for Monday night.

McMahon was clearly still irked at Kroenke Wednesday afternoon.

“We respect our audience and we always do the right thing for them, unlike the way WWE has been treated by Kroenke’s management. We’ve been treated so shabbily,” McMahon said. “Not only have they thrown us out, they’ve tried to trample on top of us after they threw us out.”

He said Kroenke offered to pay any incremental costs WWE would have incurred as a result of the scheduling conflict only if WWE agreed to a joint press release.

He promised to poke fun at Stan Kroenke and the Nuggets during Monday night’s show at Staples. He plans to stage a wrestling match-up between the Nuggets and Lakers and a confrontation between himself and an actor posing as Stan the Man.

In mid-April, Kroenke Sports Enterprises allowed World Wrestling Entertainment to book the Pepsi Center for an event set to take place on the evening of Monday, May 25.

Problem is, with the Nuggets fully engaged in an NBA title run, the Pepsi Center is now scheduled to host Game 4 of the Western Conference finals that night.

WWE chairman Vince McMahon blamed Stan Kroenke for not believing his team was good enough to still be playing in mid-May. After all, the Nuggets hadn’t advanced past the first round in more than a decade.

A WWE spokesman said Pepsi Center officials sent the organization a contract for securing the May 25 date on April 15 – the final night of the NBA’s regular season and the night the Nuggets secured the No. 2 seed in the West.

WWE says it has already sold more than 10,000 tickets for the event. The organization expects a sellout, with tickets ranging from $20 to $70.

Meanwhile, the NBA says the Western Conference finals will be played on Monday. Period.

“The Nuggets and the WWE understand that the date of Game 4 of the Western Conference finals cannot be changed,” NBA senior vice president Mike Bass said. “We are confident that the Pepsi Center and the WWE will resolve their scheduling conflict.”

Sounds like Kroenke Sports Enterprises and Ticketmaster are headed for an ugly divorce.

KSE blames Ticketmaster for this morning’s mess, in which Colorado residents were denied the right to purchase Nuggets playoff tickets because somehow Ticketmaster thought they lived elsewhere.

According to a potential ticket buyer, Ticketmaster is placing the blame squarely on KSE. The company is telling disgruntled customers that the snafu was “the Nuggets problem” and the ticketing giant had no responsibility. Ticketmaster public relations officials haven’t returned calls.

This isn’t even the Finals, folks! What’s going to happen then? A repeat of the Rockies World Series mess?

Anyway the backdrop to this story is that KSE is moving to its own ticketing system, called TicketHorse, next season for the Nuggets. TicketHorse was announced in 2007 and currently handles ticket sales for events at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, home to the Colorado Rapids.

Kroenke Sports Enterprises hosted a “career fair” at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City on March 28, just more than two weeks after conducting a round of layoffs that may have involved roughly two dozen workers.

KSE, which owns the Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche and the Pepsi Center, among other holdings, said in a posting about the event that attendees could “learn more about available internship and paid positions.”
“Don’t forget to bring plenty of resumes!” the post reads.

In a statement given to The Post’s Penny Parker on March 11, KSE said: “We recently have been forced to make difficult financial decisions during these trying economic times to decrease costs. Because of the numerous economic challenges faced at KSE and all businesses locally, nationally and globally, we are saddened to announce that we have made staff reductions.”

Not only was the fair held after KSE cut jobs, the company charged a $17 entrance fee. KSE hosted the event in conjuction with the company’s soccer franchise, the Colorado Rapids. The $17 entrance fee included a ticket to the Rapids/Wizards game later that evening.

Amid the recession, job fairs are popping up left and right, legitimate or not. The KSE career event appears unusual, not only because Read more…

Andy Vuong joined The Denver Post as a business reporter in 2000 after graduating from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a news-editorial degree. His primary beats are gambling, telecommunications and technology. Over the years, his coverage has included everything from aviation to federal courts.